Travelers Fandom Week 2019
by nekilarose
Summary: Written for Travelers Fandom Week 2019
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Written for the Travelers Fandom Week 2019 on Tumblr. This is Day 1, First Person.

* * *

She's not sure why she was chosen for this particular host.

Don't get her wrong, there's nothing wrong with the kid. She's had quite a bit of experience with her sisters, and he's actually a pretty good kid.

It's not even the fact that her host didn't even have anything else going on in her life. On the contrary, it makes slipping into her life even easier than it would have been if she had to fool family and co-workers.

It was that damn man that her host chose to procreate with.

Traveler 3465 had done all the prep work prior to landing back in the 21st, but she was completely unprepared for the feeling of helplessness that came over her whenever she felt whenever that asshole managed to thwart one of her plans.

The fact that she couldn't just bash his face in didn't help either. Mac was adamant that she follow all protocols, specifically number 5. Which meant unfortunately, he had to stay alive.

But that didn't mean she had to fall in line like her host did.

So she developed her own rules. She got a job like the social worker said, she even agreed to let Jeff move back in, just to keep a good environment for Jeffrey Jr. Even though her skin crawled every time he was near. She didn't trust his seeming 'rehabilitation' at all, she knew it was just an act.

Sure enough, when he came back home drunk that night and tried to force himself on her, she knew. She knew deep in her bones that he would never change, he would keep drinking and throwing his weight around expecting her to yield.

Hitting someone has never been so satisfying.

Although she is grateful for Philip in stopping her before she went too far, she'll never be sorry for sticking up for herself, or for showing her hand. Even though it clues him in on the fact that his docile, cowering girlfriend is no longer around, she is glad he now looks at her with confusion and a little fear.

Good. Let him feel a little bit of what her host must have been feeling all this time.

When he denies her her son to hold after they've been kidnapped, (and he is hers now, dammitt) she wants to bash his face in all over again. How dare he think he's the superior parent? She's the one with Jeffrey day in and day out! She knows his favorite foods, and what he likes to watch in order to sleep. The fact that she physically never gave birth to him doesn't matter anymore, he is her son.

When Jeff finally screws up enough that it can't be ignored, she wants to cheer. Though he doesn't come back to her arms, at least he's away from the toxicity that is his biological father. The family he is placed with is a good one, she's checked herself. Even gone as far as to quiz Philip to see if there's anything he knows that will affect how they raise him. She ignores the soft look he gives her as he assures her that he knows nothing bad about the family. She thanks him with a smile and makes a note to schedule her visits so as to not draw suspicion to herself.

She (and the whole team) get the biggest shock of their lives when Jeff is overwritten. It was unexpected by everyone, even Philip. To be fair, this new host seems like a good person, but he's wearing the face of the man that she loathes.

And he will not leave her alone.

She gets it, he's in a new century, without a team of his own, and he was tasked with working with her to get spun up on the times. But it seems like every time she turns around, he's there, showing his amazement at all that this century has to offer.

When she finally manages to hand him off, she briefly wonders if they'll ever work together again. Then Protocol Omega is called and all she can think of is getting back to see her son.

If this world is truly fucked beyond repair, she knows where she'd rather be when it ends.


	2. Day 2 Protocol

'_**Don't take a life, don't save a life, unless otherwise directed. Do not interfere.'**_

Protocol 3 ran through Carly's head on a continuous loop. As much as she believed in the director, and as much as it was ingrained in her to follow the rules like a good little soldier, she couldn't for the life of her understand why Jeff Conniker was still alive.

Sure she could have attributed it to plain old dumb luck, but honestly? The guy was a death waiting to happen. All his drinking, bullying, and disregard for general civility (at least where she was concerned) should all be adding up to him ending up six feet under.

But, no. He lived on.

He lived on to terrorize her, and put his own son in danger, and it seemed nobody cared! She wasn't sure what his family situation was like, but she was sure his "friends" at work would manage to get over his death pretty quick. He was just a cog in the system, another body, another potential host just waiting for a traveler to jump into.

That night when he came home drunk was the first time she had come to breaking Protocol 3, and truthfully if Philip had not broken in singing to her with his soft voice, she was sure she would have killed him. At the time, she was pissed at Philip, but eventually she recognize that that would have been a huge mistake.

It didn't mean the thought ever went away.

Every time she had to deal with him, every time she had to just sit and smile in his face in order to keep her son, she felt a piece of her shrivel up. She felt sorry for her host, the girl was obviously stuck in a no win situation, and it would have continued until he killed her. Which, come to think of it, he eventually did.

She was a little resentful of the life that she got tossed into, but felt she couldn't really complain too much. At least she didn't get a host that was a drug addict like Philip, or dealing with mental issues like poor Simon. Hell, Trevor was locking up for increasingly varied amounts of time, and they couldn't predict when it would happen. However it did sting a little that Marcy got to go home to someone like David, who wouldn't even dream of raising his voice to her, let alone a hand.

Or Mac, who seemed to have truly embraced Protocol 5 with Kat, even going so far as to try and break Protocol 4. The fact that Hall was tasked to put a stop to that only reinforced the notion that the director was aware and watching at all times, so her little fantasy about taking one of her high powered rifles and doing the world a favor by ridding them of Jeff had to stay just that, a fantasy.

Until she couldn't take it anymore.

She had lost her son. He had been taken away for his own good, and Carly was inwardly seething that no one seemed to give a shit. She was going through an emotional whirlwind inside, but to everyone else, it was business as usual. So when Jeff cut them off mid-mission, she was done. This asshole had taken so much from her, and it didn't really matter if she was overwritten or died, because she couldn't go on living like this, and doing nothing in response.

Every second she held that gun on him, she was expecting the director to intervene and replace her. She honestly believed she would have welcomed not feeling like this anymore. But the next best thing possible happened instead, she got her one wish.

Jeffrey Conniker was no more.

She couldn't believe it when he dropped his weapon and clutched his head. This was why the director left him alive all this time? She held her weapon on him until he stopped screaming and introduced himself.

"I'm Traveler 5416." He managed to get out, still kneeling on the ground.

"Welcome to the 21st." She holstered her weapon. "Someone drive him home, he's drunk."

Maybe it was a good thing she didn't break Protocol 3 after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Day 3

"Traveler 3468 abort mission, resume Protocol 5."

The directive had come from a chubby cheeked red-headed little girl on a bike. Grant quickly knelt down to try and soothe the now distraught girl as she looked around frantically for her parents.

"Well, talk about a last minute save." Grace quipped from the van. The team had been dispatched to locate and eliminate the historian for another traveler team that had appeared to go rogue. Grace had tagged along because they needed a programmer to undo a specific line of coding that had malfunctioned, making the historian just start blurting out random events. Before they arrived, apparently the coding had fixed itself, so that particular traveler was no longer considered a threat.

As they loaded their equipment back into the van and started their journey back, Carly couldn't help but wonder if her son would one day be used as a messenger. Is that why the director chose a single mother with a child who had no other ties to anyone else but a drunk police officer, just so they would have their very own messenger?

Carly stayed lost in her own world until they got back to the garage. "You staying in there all day?" Trevor asked as he reached past her to grab his bag.

"Do you think the director chose this host just because she had a child and could use it as a messenger in the future?" Carly asked him. As Traveler 0115, Trevor had lived longer than most of them put together. Surely he had some kind of insight as to the directors thought process.

"Probably. It would be the smartest choice, that way your team wouldn't have to worry about some random kid accusing you of kidnapping. Of course, that's a moot point now since he's been taken away now." Grace answered carelessly as she exited the vehicle.

Carly's eyes widened at her callousness. She understood that 0027 was socially awkward, but that was kind of brutal even for her.

"Grace!" Trevor admonished before turning to Carly, "I'm sure that's not the reason." he broke off to push Grace into the garage when she scoffed.

"Do you think the director is disappointed because I couldn't keep Jeffrey Jr. with me?" She asked in a quiet voice. Carly didn't often have doubts about her job performance, she was chosen for a reason after all. But if this host was chosen simply because of the child, and now the child was no longer in the picture, was that a bad mark against her abilities?

"No way." Trevor immediately shook his head. He rested a hand on her shoulder, "I'm not sure what the director's plan was for you and your son, but I'm sure he saw this happening and planned for it. Jeff was eventually over written too, right? Well maybe the director planned for Jeffrey Jr. to go to a good family so both of you could do your mission without having to worry if he was okay."

He caught her eye, "You did say he was with a good family, right?" At her nod, he gave his famous grin, "See! All part of the grand plan. Now you don't have to worry about leaving in the middle of the night, or finding a last minute babysitter."

"Thanks, Trev." Carly sent him a smile. She was suddenly grateful for their cheery engineer. Certainly he had dealt with worse in his extremely long life, and he still had the best attitude of anyone she had ever met. Present and future. She wonders if that's part of the reason that 0027 is so drawn to him.

"No problem." He offerd his hand to help her out of the van. "Look, about what Grace said.."

Carly waved him off, "It's fine. I know she didn't…..well no, I know she meant it, but I know that was her weird way of trying to be truthful." She spotted Grace peeking around the corner, looking for all the world like a scolded child.

Carly decided to extend the olive branch, "Thanks for your words, Grace." No way would she be able to call them 'kind words' but the sentiment was clearly there.

Traveler 0027 brightened and bounded out to stand beside Trevor. "Absolutely! And don't worry, the director is brilliant, I'm sure he's already thought of a solution to fix the fact that you messed up his plan to have a messenger closer to the team!"

"GRACE!"


	4. Day 4 Soulmates

Day 4-Soulmates

"Do you think you and David are soulmates?"

Carly knows the question takes Marcy by surprise, she pauses as she's looking over her medical bag. Marcy was scheduled to go on a routine run to replenish their dwindling stock of supplies, so Carly tagged along just for something to do.

"I don't meant to pry, it's probably a dumb question…..you know what, forget I asked." Carly felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment as she turned back staring out the windshield.

"It's not a dumb question at all." Marcy tries to assure her. "Honestly, I don't know, I think I just got lucky with this host." She takes a moment to think, "Especially since pretty much everything that we researched and learned about my host was off target. Why do you ask?"

Carly shrugged as she focused her gaze outside, "I don't know, I was thinking about my neighbor. She's in a situation like my host was, with the physically abusive partner. I wonder if she or my host ever thought that those men were their soulmate." She shakes her head, "I can't imagine why they would stay with someone who hurts them like that."

"I don't think it's as simple as that, though." Marcy gently says. "I'm sure neither Jeff nor your neighbors boyfriend started out abusing them right away."

"Okay, that I can understand, but why stay when it did? Especially my host who had a baby with him? I don't get it." Carly was truly dumbfounded.

"Having never been in that situation, I can't answer that one way or the other. But, I'd like to think that in a different world, maybe a different time, my host and David could have been each other's soulmates." Marcy cocked her head, "I know that Jeff is or rather, wasn't anyone's idea of a soulmate, but what about 5416? He seems really nice and is obviously nothing like his host."

Carly snorted, "Absolutely not. I look at him and I still see the man that I would have gladly shot dead. I know consciously he's not Jeff, but that association is there, and it's hard to shake."

Not that it's stopped him from trying, though.

Traveler 5416 has made it a habit to be everywhere Carly is lately. He says it's because of him needing help to acclimate to being in the 21st without a team of his own, but Carly knows different. Showing up with breakfast, trying to engage her in small talk that has almost nothing to do with his (or her) mission, he is angling for something else. Something that she isn't sure she is ready to give.

Her relationship with Mac hadn't survived the transition to the 21st, and as much as she brushed it off as nothing but a moment, it hurt that he was so ready to cut short what they shared. Not that she thought of Mac as her soulmate, they were too similar to really work out in the long term. But sometimes, she thinks she'd love to be like a few of her fellow travelers and be able to go home at the end of a difficult mission and have someone there to greet her and ask how her day went.

Especially since Jeffrey Jr. is no longer in her care, and all she is met with on a frequently increasing rate is the angry shouts and meek apologies of her new neighbors.

"I don't really believe in the concept of soulmates anyway." Marcy continues.

"Why not?" Carly is honestly curious to know.

"Because that's a lot of stress to put on one person. You want this other being to be your lover, your best friend, and whatever else the word soulmates is supposed to mean? That is a long list of requirements to be met, and I personally don't believe you can find all that in just one person." Marcy explained.

"I mean, look at me and David. He's awesome in a lot of ways, but there is no way I can tell him who I really am. I can't talk to him about my work without lying to him, and I'm pretty sure soulmates are supposed to at least know what their partner does for a living." She leans against the wall, "but that doesn't make him lacking in any way, I can just talk to you guys instead, and that feeds that part of me."

"So you think it's better to surround yourself with people who feed differently parts of you, instead of trying to find one that does it all?" Carly asked for clarification, in a way that did make a lot more sense.

"I guess." The other girl gives Carly a half-smile, "I've certainly managed to surround myself with people that feed different parts of me, and it seems to be working out okay." Carly smiles back as she realizes she's subconsciously done the same thing.

As they headed back to base, she could feel her way of thinking shift, maybe the ultimate idea of soulmates wasn't to find everything in one person, but to spread it out into as many people as you needed in order to feed all parts of yourself.


	5. Day 5-Alternate Universe

Day 5- Alternate Universe

Carly woke slowly, rolling over to lay directly in the path of the morning sun. Today was Sunday and she had absolutely nothing planned. No work, no appointments, plus she had gotten the okay from Mac to turn her comms off for the day. She was halfway back to sleep when the child monitor next to her bed crackled to life with her son talking to himself.

She laid on her back for a moment just listening to him chatting away. She thought of how different things were now as opposed to how they'd been when she first arrived here in the 21st century. Her first few months were one hell of an adjustment. The man with whom her host lived with was an abusive drunk who showed no mercy towards his girlfriend.

Carly won't lie, It was a struggle for her not to kill him in his sleep most nights. He may have thought he had everyone else around them fooled, but Carly saw the looks on people's faces when he was in their presence. Most of them didn't like him any more than she did, they were just better at hiding it. The few friends that he did have overlooked or enabled his behavior. She supposes it was easy enough for them to do so, after all, they got to drop him off with her then head home. They didn't have to deal with the sloppy drunk who would yell at her for any little thing, or threaten to take the baby away from her.

Carly hated him.

She hated how he always seemed to just slide right out of trouble. She hated how he looked at her, like she was a piece of meat that belonged to him. She hated how he didn't really give a damn about Jeffrey Jr., yet would use him as a prop whenever the mood struck him. She hated how he was somehow always in her space, yet when she really needed his help, he was nowhere to be found.

She knew his sobriety kick wouldn't last long, and sure enough, a little over a month after he quit drinking, he went out with some of his cop friends. They told her it was in honor of someone's promotion, but Carly didn't give a damn what it was for. All she cared about was he got extremely drunk and tried to drive home in his condition.

It would be the last mistake he ever made.

When she got the knock on the door, she opened it to see the guilt-ridden faces of his supposed friends. She's sure her indifference to his death was a shock to them, but she didn't care because she was finally free of that albatross around her neck. The sympathy for her loss came pouring in, and Carly wanted to choke each and every single person who went on and on about what a good man and father he was.

In penance, or in order to ease their own guilt, they managed to keep the fact that he was driving drunk under wraps, and so Carly was able to receive survivor benefits. The first thing she did was take her son and move to a different home. There was no way she wanted to stay in that dreary little house with all those bad memories.

She purchased a small two bedroom house near the garage, and set about making it her own. Trevor proved he was just as handy with a tool set, and spent many nights helping her fix the few things that didn't work as well as it should. Marcy brought David over, and they, along with Philip, took part in painting Jeffrey's room. Since none of them could agree on a theme, and Carly was sure they would be moving later on once her son got older, she let them each do a wall in the style of their choice.

Marcy chose a soothing underwater theme that he decorated it with fish of every species. _'It will invoke calmness, and allow him to sleep better' _she argued with David. He had scoffed and replied that all boys love race cars, so he painted a racetrack along with all types of cars.

However, if Carly had to choose a favorite, she'd go with the jungle motif that Trevor and Philip did together. They picked the biggest wall and filled it with all sorts of animals and vegetation. They even painted a tree that spanned from the ceiling all the way down to the floor with monkeys swinging off the braches.

The first time she brought her son into the room he made a beeline for the wall with the huge tree, much to Marcy and David's disappointment. There were many times that Carly would lay him down for a nap or for bed and he'd face the wall and start babbling as if he were talking straight to the animals. Mac and Katherine had contributed a mountain of stuffed animals, and his favorite seemed to be a plush lion that roared when a paw was squeezed.

She heard the sound of the roar over the baby monitor and smiled to herself, she never would have thought her life would have ended up like this. She's broken out of her musings by the door creaking open and feeling the bed dip.

"You want me to get him?"

"Nah, he's having fun with his lion." She rolled over to face the man who had become something of a permanent fixture in her house lately. "Why are you up so early anyways?" She watched as Philip flushed in embarrassment, and she laughed. "Again? Seriously?" She buried her face in the pillow to muffle her laughter.

"I don't know why this is so funny to you. I've done research, babies die every day from crib accidents." He tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, "I'm just making sure he doesn't become one of them." He said defensively.

Carly felt her heart skip. She loved it when Philip was protective of her son. When he first began spending the night, she would wake to find his side of the bed cold. Inevitably she would find him sitting in silence just watching Jeffrey sleep. He had gradually weaned himself off the habit, but if the team had a particularly bad day, she knew she would find him there if he wasn't in bed.

Carly's laughter tapered off, "You know I don't mind if you're protective of Jeffrey," She reached a hand over to pull him closer to her, "but I think we could be using the little time we have to ourselves to do more adult things."

Philip frowned before her meaning dawned on him. "I think that is an excellent idea." He leaned over to cover her mouth with his.

All that was heard after that was the soft babbling of a baby to his stuffed lion over the monitor.


End file.
